


Throwing Water

by gloss



Category: due South
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen, Sauna, Sweat, dead Bob
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-11
Updated: 2009-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bob builds a sauna in the afterlife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Throwing Water

**Author's Note:**

> For the ds_flashfiction "Sweat" challenge.

Bob bounds through the snow while Benton crunches more sedately behind him.

Three yards from his office, northwest at the foot of a rise and on the shore of a small lake, stands the newest outbuilding. A sauna, whose stove has been running for several hours now, heating the rocks until they glow.

Bob opens the door with a flourish. "Built it with my own hands."

"I never would have suspected," Benton says, stepping inside, his cheeks pinking up almost instantly from the heat.

Bob glances sharply at him, but he cannot discern sarcasm in his son's tone. He is sure it's there, but there's nothing explicit he can point to. He's damn proud of this place, and he doesn't mind telling anyone who'll listen.

The Group of Six is sick to death of him talking about it. Geordie MacLeod told him that, privately, just before the five of them set off on some cockeyed, half-baked Seniors' Tour of the Southwest.

Bob is lonely. So he has kept himself busy.

He has the splinters to show for it, too.

Benton runs his fingertips over the joints in the wall. Tongue-in-groove for the good strong white-spruce planks, built over a five-sided skeleton. Bob peers over his shoulder, admiring his own work.

"Damn difficult to get a hold of that wood," he says. "Reminds me of trying to get little Jackie Coppermine to go back to work on the DEWline. Mills out here don't work quite like the ones in your world."

Ben isn't listening. He turns, pacing into the center of the room, running his finger under his collar. "Warm in here."

"The secret's in the ventilation, son," Bob says, rocking back and forth on his heels. He cannot stop smiling; rarely since his death has he felt quite so exhilarated. Benton looks, however, about as distrustful as always. Taking him by the shoulder, Bob points with his free hand. "See the slot down there? That'll flush the cold air out."

"And the rocks?" Benton asks, moving away and picking one up, weighing it in his palm. Just like Caroline, picking through the canned goods bound for the High Arctic settlements, wearing an expression both appraising and dubious.

"Put that down, son."

"Why?"

"It'll burn you."

Benton tosses the stone from hand to hand. "I think you overestimate the power of my imagination."

"Soapstone," Bob tells him and ignores the jab. "Went all the way to Taloyoak for that."

Benton fixes him with one of those close-range stares. Rather reminiscent of a stubborn musk-ox, now that Bob thinks about it. "You went to Taloyoak?"

His son sounds...disconsolate, that might be the word. Perhaps distressed.

"I did." He cannot explain how travel works in his world; he has tried, because every so often Benton's composure will slip and he will express confusion about Bob's comings and goings, and Bob is trying his damnedest to be accessible and approachable. As the housewives' shows say; it is never too late to address one's regrets and mistakes. "Why don't you slip out of that tunic and enjoy yourself?"

Benton's eyebrows crease together, a moment of worry and discomfort, before he tips up his chin and shakes his head.

Stubborn as anything, Benton is.

"Here, I'll show you how it's done," Bob says, unbuttoning his tunic from the bottom, taking care not to catch his fingers in the lanyard. "Now, Jukka Impola always said you should keep the changing room separate from the sauna proper, but then again, he also said one should enjoy as many wives as one could handle."

"Jukka the Bigamist?" Benton asks. "The one who sued Trudeau?"

"The very same. Learned everything I know about saunas and ice-fishing from the man." Bob knew he'd come around. It is simply that Benton takes his own time, his own route, circuitous and private, but he does come round. "The state doesn't have any business in the bedrooms of the nation, you know. So long as there's one bedroom per couple."

"As Jukka discovered," Benton says. He is still fully clothed, but he appears more relaxed. Perhaps that's really the best that Bob can hope for.

"Much to his distress, yes."

The afterworld blankets the real one. It occupies the gaps and forgotten stretches of the real world, springing up where it is needed, embodying the regrets and losses of the living. Four years on since finding himself posted here, Bob is still surveying the landscape, noting its inconsistencies and acquainting himself with its denizens. He came across Fitzgerald and Carter of the lost patrol whooping it up in a shack outside of Aurora; the mad trapper of Rat River floated through the West Edmonton Mall, wraithlike arms wrapped around himself, dark eyes rolling in overlarge sockets; Judge Sissons took the waters of the Chicago Ritz Carlton's pool every morning at eight-thirty. He didn't like talking about murder and justice, but he was always amenable to discussing the Habs' chances for the cup.

Bob himself is here, in a pocket of the North just off his son's monastic cell. There must be some reason for that.

"Dad?"

Bob starts, a frisson rippling down his spine, and blinks hard. "Yes, son?"

Benton's hand rises, about to touch his eyebrow, before he schools himself and simply smiles politely. When he is alone and bored, Bob begins to believe that he will never understand his son; they are alike, the boy is bright and has learned well, but there seems to be an unreachable spot within him. A territory that, on examination, stretches beyond the horizon, closely-guarded and vast.

"You're half-dressed," Benton says finally.

Bob looks down at himself, smoothing the soft flannel of his union suit. "So I am." He claps his hands once, the sound disturbing the smoke settling around them. "So how about that sauna?"

"Not now," Benton says. After a pause, he adds, "Maybe some other time."

"Yes," Bob says. "A good steam does wonders for the soul. Drop by any time."

"Thank you," Benton says, squaring his shoulders and reaching for the door knob.

"Bring the Yank, if you like."

Benton's eyes narrow as he looks Bob over. "Enjoy yourself."

"Oh, I will, son. I will."

It is quiet, only the pop and wheeze of the fire, after Benton leaves. After shrugging off his tunic and hanging it on the peg, Bob steps out of his boots, then unbuttons his breeches and skins them off. His union suit comes next, until he is completely, blissfully naked. He splashes some river water on the stones and inhales the vapor.

Löyly, Jukka always said, was the steam-smoke-sweat Spirit of the Sauna. Bob knows what he meant now as he reclines on the bottom bench with a towel around his neck. Spirits are fluid things, caught between liquid and gas, slipping through and past the real world, gathering where it is quiet.

He watches the sun set over the scrubby pines. The unbroken snow, pure and unassailable, glows crimson and azure and deep orange. Bob adds another spoonful of water to the rocks — heittää löylyä, the action of throwing water — and leans forward until the steam envelops him. Until his dead pores open and filth escapes. Until he is clean, red-cheeked and gasping, and ready to return to work.


End file.
